Wingless
by Iridaesin
Summary: Sometimes we must go forth in search of our destiny. Sometimes destiny comes to find us. And sometimes we spend our entire lives running away from it.
1. Chapter 1: Pride and Prejudice

**Chapter 1: Pride and Prejudice**

_Disclaimer: All characters and storylines besides OCs and original content belong to their respective owners._

* * *

**Ryathen**

* * *

There is nothing the Altmer value more than pride and purity.

Pride of culture, magic, sophistication.

And purity of blood.

Marriage is little more than a formality among the Mer of the Summerset Isles; a pretty euphemism for what it really is –selective breeding; striving to remain as faithful as they can to the physique of their parent race, the Aldmer.

What most denizens of Tamriel don't know is that there exist certain castes within Altmeri society, families whose lineages could be traced from their Aldmer ancestors, and whose current heads haven't deviated from their physiology by the slightest margin.

Purebloods, one might call them.

And apart from members of the royal family, the Pureblood lines are held in the highest esteem; the reason they don't rule is because they deem the semantics of court entirely too troublesome, preferring a more… active role in the preservation and expansion of their empire. They even have a group for them; you've probably heard of it.

The Thalmor.

* * *

**Isandith**

* * *

I woke up this morning with a voracious appetite, swearing to myself that I would eat a whole horker in one sitting if the servants would let me. But now I barely had enough strength to sit upright in my chair. Breakfast, a measly egg with sautéed snowberries, sat on my plate untouched.

"Can you believe it?"

"No."

I didn't want to.

My mother giggled riotously in her seat. I've always been wary when she showed any kind of expression beyond her trademark concentration. Overly enthusiastic gestures were seen as very crude by Altmeri standards. Such things were best reserved for those behind closed doors, or preferably never.

"A proposal," she gushed, largely to herself since I was straining to direct my attention elsewhere. "At your age it's quite an honor!"

"Yes, Mother."

"Although," she chuckled. "I must say he has excellent taste. You're exquisite even among our kind. Red hair. Blue eyes. You'd be hard pressed to find either over several generations, and yet here you are with both. My _beautiful_ Isandith."

"Are the berries too bitter, dear?" my father asked. "You're making quite the face."

My lips realigned themselves into a smile. It took considerable effort not to grimace.

"I'm alright, thank you."

He nodded approvingly.

Even if I had touched the berries and even if they were too bitter I couldn't have said so without earning a look of disapproval. This was another unspoken formality of Altmeri culture: one never finds fault in the presence of those whose ranks are higher than one's own, in profession, lineage, or age. And to speak out before one's parents? Entirely taboo.

"Ah, yes." My mother clasped her hands together. Her green eyes practically glowed at the spread on our table until finding their way up to mine. "Your cousin is visiting today. She was just promoted to First Emissary. Be sure to congratulate her. She's here especially for you." Laughter bubbled up once again. "Our Isandith is making a name for herself with all the right people, isn't she?"

My father cleared his throat, dabbing crumbs off his meticulously trimmed beard. Most believed it made him look distinguished. I always thought he looked ridiculous.

"Mind yourself, Draya. You're making yourself look foolish."

It was as if a trap snapped shut. My mother didn't so much as bat an eyelash, returning to her normal stoic state in an instant.

"Yes, husband. Do forgive me."

"All is well." He raised his head to look at me just this once. He shared my mother's lime-green stare, which he now used to trace over my face. It was the most personal interaction we've had in the last several months. "Marriage," he said flatly. "You're so young."

I began to hope for some sort of intervention.

"Be sure not to disgrace him."

"Yes, Father." I know better than to have expectations. "May I excuse myself?"

"You may."

I waited for my handmaiden to pull out my seat, stood, and bowed.

"My thanks."

Keeping with tradition I took three paces backwards before allowing myself to turn heel. My handmaiden, Leyli, took five before following after me, a gesture of the difference in rank. I bid my expression to hold just minutes longer, long enough to set the mask in place.

"Mistress?" Leyli asked. "If your cousin is visiting I should at least put up your hair."

"Yes," I agreed. "But afterwards I need you to fetch Ryathen for me."

"But, Mistress!" she gasped. "That's highly improper."

My mouth opened only to shut again. Improper. She was right.

"You're a good servant, Leyli."

But you're a terrible friend.

* * *

**Ryathen**

* * *

"I'm here to escort your ladyship to Mistress Isandith's parlor." I didn't miss the new uniform; black paneled fabric with gold inlay; only there was more gold than usual. "Congratulations on your promotion, Mistress Elenwen."

The woman smiled only slightly. "My," she cooed, "News certainly travels quickly here."

"It does indeed."

She faced me, ashy blonde locks, smoldering eyes and all.

"Since you seem so well informed might you tell me what my dear aunt is hiding? She's determined to keep it a surprise."

I pretended to think about what she could be referring to. The truth is that I knew. I knew since the minute Draya and Tirev arrived at the estate that something was amiss. The two wizards were Thalmor emissaries of Valenwood. They hadn't been in the Summerset Isles for months, and before that, years. Draya was so exuberant she blurted the news the minute her foot came in contact with the ground.

"It's a proposal of marriage."

Elenwen's eyes went wide. "For Isandith! Oh please tell me you know who the man is! Do I know him?"

"Yes, Mistress, I believe you do."

"What does he call himself?"

"Ancano."

The name hit her like a drop of rain between her eyes. Beneath my calm exterior I reveled in her shock. Ancano was her longtime peer, both in magical institutions as well as their current profession. I've long suspected she held feelings for him, but in typical Altmeri fashion, hid them the best she knew how. It was very possible he never even suspected.

"Isandith caught quite a catch." Strained laughter parted past her lips. Her already thin mouth became significantly thinner. "I simply _must_ congratulate her."

"Elenwen!"

No sooner did that willow witch say this did Isandith burst from her room. Obsessively tight braids and exotic flowers seemed forced into a pile on her head. She took her cousin's hands in her own and gazed upon her with overwhelming relief.

"How glad I am to see you!"

"As am I." Isandith stiffened at the indifference in her voice. "A thousand blessings for your upcoming nuptials." Elenwen proceeded to take one hand and bring it to her lips, a formal method of giving an intimate gesture. "May you bear many children as fair as yourself."

I suddenly felt remorse for telling Elenwen the news. I knew she liked Ancano. I also knew how vindictive she could be. Through hurting her I hurt my student. Isandith stood there, utterly blank.

"A-and I congratulate you as well, Elenwen, on your promotion."

"Oh, this." She looked down at herself. "I nearly forgot. One needs only a base understanding of spellcraft and half a brain to-" She held a hand over her mouth. "Oh my, I didn't mean… I know you have trouble with magic. It's not entirely uncommon, you know. Well, though it is _rare_ I daresay. It does sound rather ridiculous, wouldn't you agree? An Altmer that isn't proficient at magic?"

I stood beside the door where custom dictated; prohibited from interfering any further.

Isandith looked as though she was struck. She managed to respond with little more than a flustered smile.

"Yes, Elenwen."

Her cousin helped herself to a seat on the couch. "Oh don't be so demure. I can tell you now Ancano despises women that can't speak up for themselves." She plucked a grape from the fruit bowl, inspecting it as though she expected to find rot. "But he despises women that speak out of place even more."

"I see."

"He hates the over-compliant the most."

Isandith forced a smile.

The corner of Elenwen's mouth twitched downwards.

"Beauty is quite relative, wouldn't you agree, Isandith?"

"Yes. It is."

She picked up another grape from the bowl, this time a shriveled raisin, holding it up to contrast with the grape she obtained earlier.

"Some like them plump. Some thin and dry." Her eyes scanned the woman opposite her on the couch. "The color of your hair is charming I'll admit. Like fire, though I fear it's far too thick for my tastes. Like the fur of a wolf, or a wet dog. But your eyes now, those are terribly lovely. If only they didn't remind one of a Nord. Filthy heretical barbarians that they are."

It took a great deal of restraint to keep from reaching for the hilt of my sword.

"Sad thing about beauty is that, even for us, it fades in time. What was one plump and ripe for the taking…" The grape spurted its juices across the table. "…disappears. Just. Like. That."

"Yes, dear cousin."

Isandith's enduring mannerisms seemed to vex the woman that much more. She stood from her seat and briskly made her way to the door.

"I fear I must get to my quarters. I cannot stay here for very long and my visit still requires I perform my duties. Feel free to… lounge as usual. I wouldn't want to trouble the bride with real work now would I?"

The door clicked shut behind her.

No sooner did it close than a tear trickled out from her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2: Snap or Shoot

**Chapter 2: Snap or Shoot**

* * *

**Ryathen**

* * *

"Mistress?"

She sat there, shell-shocked. I don't think she even realized she was weeping until her tears hit the back of her folded hands. She stared at the shining droplet as though it was something entirely foreign. Her fingers twitched. Slowly her palms came over her mouth in what formed an expression of horror. They did little to muffle her staggered sobbing.

"Isandith."

I damned the etiquette barring my way, flying to her side. I brought my arms closer, but did not touch. I knew the world she had been raised in all too well. I feared she would shatter if simple compassion met her point blank.

"E-Elenwen… s-she…"

I pulled a handkerchief out from my sleeve, holding it out for her to take, but she made no move for it.

"Why was she…?"

It wasn't that I was too much of a coward to admit that I had something to do with it, but I knew that she would have snapped sooner or later. It didn't matter if she'd heard the words from me or some other source. Her silent love had made her bitter. And she was going to be sure everyone knew.

"Don't fret over it," I urged gently, dabbing at the flow of tears. Two reddened blue eyes stared down at me, large, bewildered, and deeply hurt. "She's just strained, Isandith. High titles and fine grooming aside, being a member of the Thalmor has a way of eating away at someone."

Her exaggerated tresses became undone. I plied the crumpled petals and stems from her hair, swiping an ivory comb from the boudoir.

"She's right, though."

With three pins in my mouth it was difficult to say anything without dropping them. I unfurled her hair the best I could over the back of the couch, sectioning it into segments I could brush easily. The best I could manage was a gruff sound, encouraging her to continue.

"It's not that I'm terrible with spells, Ryathen. You know that." She stiffened from her shoulders down. "I just have no interest in them. I like alchemy, but everyone says it's below my station."

Station.

Position.

Rank.

The Altmer loved their hierarchy. Orders were adhered too, not questioned. Tradition was upheld, never amended. For those whose bloods ran purer than the rest, this was especially true. And Nine Divines, I hated it.

"The only reason Mother and Father hadn't sent me off to the College to study was because of this wet-dog hair and these barbarian eyes." A bitterness I doubted she was aware of began to surface in her voice. "I'm _rare._" She tilted her head back as I was braiding it. Isandith gazed at me in askance. "Tell me, Ryathen. If I'm so rare then why do I feel so cheap?"

I sighed before I could stop myself.

I would have launched into a conversation about the faults of Altmeri culture, but experience had taught me that this wasn't going to work. From the moment I met her I recognized the look of a creature born and bred in captivity. Her world extended to the walls of her estate, and no matter how expansive it was, how finely furnished, it was better to call it a luxurious box. She had no wanderlust, and no interest in exploring beyond those boundaries. I'd despised that about her at first, until it dawned on me.

She'd been taught that there was nothing else.

Nothing I'd say would make a difference. It was madness to speak of grass and sky to a bird that knew only a metal cage within a stone cell. Thus I tried a different approach.

"Look at me, Isandith," I beckoned. "What am I?"

My pupil blinked, taken aback by the question; exactly what I was going for.

She examined me as if for the first time. Tanned skin. Amber eyes. Black hair.

"You're… a Bosmer."

"Where do Bosmers come from?"

"Valenwood."

I nodded, tied off her braid and sat beside her in one fell motion.

"Have I ever told you how I came to be here?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"When the Altmeri Dominion was first being reestablished, the Thalmor came to Valenwood to annex it. On the surface it was a straightforward approach, but the truth was that many of us resented the meddling." I folded my arms. "There was also quite a number that fought to keep the Altmeri away, but they were soon overwhelmed by their sorcery. Those that weren't killed in the mess were captured to be sentenced for any number of reasons to any number of ends, usually nonsense; usually fatal. Your parents were, and still are, I imagine, inquisitors."

"My parents?" she gasped.

I see they never bothered to mention it the few times they did see her.

"Yes."

"How do you know this?" she demanded.

"Because I was part of one such rebellion, and Tirev was the one in charge of my fate."

"My _Father_?" Her eyes widened. "How are you still alive?"

I couldn't repress a grim smile.

"As it so happened… I may have struck through his wards using a simple arrow, though he'd never admit it, I'm sure. He asked me if I was any good at flinging my _pointy twigs_."

She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing.

"I answered yes. Then he told me he had a daughter, and he was concerned that she was wasting her days away without a hobby to keep her occupied." Now my smile was entirely genuine. "I had two choices. Teach her what I knew or die. At the time, bitter and angry as I was, I almost chose the latter. But Tirev is a cunning man… he gave me time to think over it –starve, I might add- but it served its purpose." I turned to her then. "And I served mine."

"I…I had no idea."

"There is more to than this to the world you know, Isandith. More than rules and regulations. More than appearances and manufactured smiles."

Though it had taken years, and the wound that Elenwen cut into her, my words were finally sinking into the fold. I could see it in the way her eyes began to shine, and how wonder bloomed through her face. It was the rebirth of an instinct that had been forced into dormancy at a tender age, and if I knew anything, it was going to burst.

"We Bosmer have a saying that our people are born with bows in their hands. All our lives we're holding onto them, pulling them taut. Sooner or later it comes to the point where we have two choices: snap, or shoot."

And just like that, invisible chains pulled her back.

The young Altmer rose to her feet, whisking her hands towards herself.

"I can't. It's not possible. Not for me, Ryathen."

"Isandith…"

"I don't even know what you're suggesting!" Her voice cracked. "Do you have any idea how much it hurts? Every time you speak of mountains and valleys and canyons and riverbeds –things I will _never_ see. You're expanding my world and I can't even catch a glimpse of it! You're cruel, Ryathen. _You're so cruel_."

My mouth fell open.

That was it.

"You have two hands and two feet. You're not bound to a wall like I was! You aren't gagged or maimed or covered in scars! You can _choose_ your life –others don't do it for you." I grabbed her by the shoulder; the physical contact rendered her so stunned she couldn't move. "This is the last chance you have, Isandith. Ancano isn't going to let you continue doing something as _uncivilized_ as archery much longer. He'll coerce you into joining the Thalmor or studying a school of magic –most likely the one he favors- and if you aren't capable you'll be made to breed like a prize sow! Tell me how all your etiquette and niceties make that sound any better. I want none of this shit about him being gentle and deflowering –you'll be made to spread your legs like anyone else, cry, scream; moan like a bitch in heat –if he's _any _good, and if he isn't his Altmeri pride will never allow either of you to broach the topic. And if you want to feel cheap consider this; at least a whore gets _paid_."

I would have found her expression funny, if only I didn't care for her well-being.

"We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I've seen you in the orchards, Isandith. You're as fine a shot as any! You know I don't say that lightly. Someday you too can fire past spells like I did! You can be the finest archer of your generation." I released her, but my eyes had yet to relinquish her own. "You're at that point I mentioned, Isandith. You can either snap or shoot. And I'm doing all I can now. I'm _begging_ you. Such a bow, once broken, can never be made whole again. Strike now. Strike _true_."

* * *

**Isandith**

* * *

Ryathen had always been frank. He never tiptoed around rules like I did when we were alone. If I did poorly he told me so, never sparing the criticism just because I was an Altmer, or a noble. It made me want to strive towards approval, and the times I received it tasted sweeter than anything I've ever had. It was brief, but it always left me craving more.

I'd always respected Elenwen, but it was a different sort than what I had for my teacher. She was the ideal; the woman that all Altmer females aspired to be, or should, anyway. For as long as I could remember I'd showered her in praises, and so she'd been good to me, taught me bits of what she knew, and was more patient than most. Her sudden change in attitude was what had thrown me off guard. I felt I'd lost someone dear to me.

Yet with Ryathen, as brash as he was being now, I wasn't nearly as upset.

His disappointment was clear.

The student within me was now desperate to remedy this.

I'd had delusions about being an archer… stalking the world, being paid to fetch elusive quarry. Then I'd catch my reflection in a floor-length mirror, at my oiled skin and silk gowns, and that dream became a fantasy I was suddenly ashamed of thinking up. Voices in my head cursed at me for even considering the possibility.

Ryathen made it clear those voices belonged to my parents, the servants, Elenwen; Ancano…

Not once had anyone asked me what _I_ wanted.

This epiphany, as small and seemingly insignificant as it was, rocked the little corner I could call my world.

But what… what _do _I want?

This question terrified me.

"…Isandith?"

I blinked, staring at Ryathen's face, now muddled with guilt and wariness, fearing he'd overstepped his bounds.

"I… would like if you spoke to my father," I began. The words felt foreign. The thoughts behind them more so. "Ask him if I can accompany Elenwen when she leaves, to observe her Thalmor duties and give myself… a worldly example. I'm getting too old to spend my days sitting here doing nothing. It would also serve to… benefit my betrothed, wouldn't you agree?"

He blanched.

Then the corners of his mouth perked up.

First one side.

Then the other.

He threw his arms around me so fast I didn't have time to react.

This… this was a breach of everything I knew.

And this abuse of protocol felt absolutely wonderful.

* * *

**Ryathen**

* * *

"You do know what will happen with you as soon as she leaves."

It was not a question.

But a fact.

I'd gone to see Tirev after supper, and now stand in his office, illuminated by fiery mage-light.

"Yes."

He unfolded his hands from beneath his chin, and for the first time since being interrogated by him all those years ago in a Valenwood grotto, looked into my eyes.

"Codes dictate once one such as you fulfills their service they're to be… dealt with."

"I know."

Call it what you will, but what began as deep-seated loathing had been tempered to a grudging sort of respect over time. The Thalmor took away the freedom of others. But they were slaves to themselves; bound not by iron, but by laws and traditions; the weight of a culture so old that it consumed all they could stand to be in the present. Many shirked from such a life, but many more embraced it. It took a great deal of discipline and selflessness to lose all sense of self for a cause… or a people.

It took me ages to discover that the cause I had been fighting for in my native home was one that only a minority could wholeheartedly support. We spoke pretty words, about fighting for the whole of our people. It was only after meeting Tirev, after living in the Summerset Isles among the Altmeri, that I came to the stinging truth.

I was only fighting for myself.

And in his eyes I could see that he knew his daughter was not the sort that could bear the weight of millennia of Altmeri history, and that she would be crushed beneath it the moment she left his cloistered walls. It was a silent conversation between elves of different races, of men that had faced one another in battle; of two people that cared for the fate of a girl they knew could not handle what was set out before her.

"Ryathen will die," he said, as though I wasn't in the room.

I tipped my brow towards him.

"It was bound to happen."

"Yes… especially in the event that something should happen to Elenwen's caravan…"

I blinked.

"Such as… a convenient raid of Stormcloaks as soon as they cross the border…"

He couldn't…?

"And should my daughter escape in the chaos and start a new life on her own, she'll be dead to us –a fate you'll meet for certain."

Tirev scowled.

"Get that disgusting grin off your face."

I humored him, but only barely.

It suddenly made sense why he was never around. It wasn't that he didn't want to be. If he were home he'd be forced to look after his daughter's behavior constantly. Thalmor duties got in the way, allowing them both an excuse for her poor upbringing… her freedom, however limited it was.

"It's been an honor serving you."

"You've been useful."

It was the closest thing I'd ever received to a thank you. For once, I adhered to the nonsense of stepping back x number of paces before turning heel.

"Ryathen."

I froze.

"Her marksmanship had better be superb. She'll need it in Skyrim."


End file.
